Good-bye Kezzi and Viola (and a quick roundup of the Shenandoah show)
Kezzi went down towards Richmond to hang out with Madeline's twin sister Clover and Aly's son Berry. Viola went off to live locally with some Nigerians and one Nigora (my perennial guest-goat). I had a couple of nibbles on Zoe and one nibble on Pan, but no sale. No one was really that interested in Fiona.
The colored Angora show was on Saturday. I set a new personal record, but not of a specifically good kind: I swept last place. Yes. I took last place in every competitive show (Diego competed in a class of one) if you consider Clover to be "mine." Not to worry- Madeline was standing right next to her at second-to-last.
I'm actually a little pleased with sweeping last place. That kind of consistency in placement says to me that I have a reasonably consistent product in my goats, and that the judge specifically doesn't want what I'm selling. She wanted far more uniformity, definition, style, and character to the mohair locks themselves. None of my goats got any points for softness or handle, though she did compliment me multiple times on that very softness.
The weather was wonderful all weekend. We had a good turnout for goats and participants. There seemed to be a few more vendors, though the breed display barn was missing everything but the camel (six farms all had issues!) In our goat show, we had a new farm - Caravel - come down from Ohio with six goats, Avalon Springs brought their goats, and Clover's family came up this year too. The group had planned properly (again) and paid the 4-H for both pen setup and pen takedown/cleanup. I was gone by 5pm.
That departure time included picking up my yarn and roving from Cutthroat Yarns. They didn't sell a lot of my stuff, but I left with a few pounds less of fiber and some cash in my pocket. Avalon Springs Farm helped me back up the trailer to the back of the barn, and I loaded up the goats by myself without issue. In fact, my goats all loaded up beautifully this year, and unloaded without any trouble before dark. Murphy's Law was definitely in effect. If I had needed to load/unload quickly, it would have been a disaster of thunderstorms-and-escaped-goats for sure.
So now that I've had a bite of supper, it's time to go finish unloading and cleaning out the truck.
The colored Angora show was on Saturday. I set a new personal record, but not of a specifically good kind: I swept last place. Yes. I took last place in every competitive show (Diego competed in a class of one) if you consider Clover to be "mine." Not to worry- Madeline was standing right next to her at second-to-last.
I'm actually a little pleased with sweeping last place. That kind of consistency in placement says to me that I have a reasonably consistent product in my goats, and that the judge specifically doesn't want what I'm selling. She wanted far more uniformity, definition, style, and character to the mohair locks themselves. None of my goats got any points for softness or handle, though she did compliment me multiple times on that very softness.
The weather was wonderful all weekend. We had a good turnout for goats and participants. There seemed to be a few more vendors, though the breed display barn was missing everything but the camel (six farms all had issues!) In our goat show, we had a new farm - Caravel - come down from Ohio with six goats, Avalon Springs brought their goats, and Clover's family came up this year too. The group had planned properly (again) and paid the 4-H for both pen setup and pen takedown/cleanup. I was gone by 5pm.
That departure time included picking up my yarn and roving from Cutthroat Yarns. They didn't sell a lot of my stuff, but I left with a few pounds less of fiber and some cash in my pocket. Avalon Springs Farm helped me back up the trailer to the back of the barn, and I loaded up the goats by myself without issue. In fact, my goats all loaded up beautifully this year, and unloaded without any trouble before dark. Murphy's Law was definitely in effect. If I had needed to load/unload quickly, it would have been a disaster of thunderstorms-and-escaped-goats for sure.
So now that I've had a bite of supper, it's time to go finish unloading and cleaning out the truck.